For the Brits: When will BREXIT referendum happen ?

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Originally Posted by broncofan

Once May and Corbyn figure out whether retaining membership in the customs union but leaving the single market is the ideal objective, what levers do they have to bring this about other than asking for it? Is there any indication that the EU would accept withdrawal from the single market but continued membership in the customs union?

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We are currently paralysed by the terms of withdrawal from membership of the EU, with the terms of renewal when we leave still not clear. In either case, the Customs Union, because it integrates EU markets in the 'frictionless trade of goods', presents itself as a necessity because whether the UK is in or out of the EU British and EU companies trade with each other. This is why a 'No Deal' or 'Hard Brexit' worries so many people as it instantly throws into question the flow of goods into and out of the UK, although the Hard Liners call this 'Project Fear' because they claim that even though the UK will become a 'third country' outside the EU, in practical terms nothing will change. That the UK government has not made sufficient plans for a No Deal scenario is evident (the Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt has admitted this), that stockpiling is taking place is also evident, just as motor manufacturers who normally shut down for a fortnight in the summer have brought this forward and will close for at least a fortnight beginning on the 1st of April, the first working day outside the EU -their concern being that parts used in the European supply chain will not be there to maintain production. 99% of the insulin used by Type 1 Diabetics is imported from the EU.

Thus hard liners argue this is a strong bargaining position for the UK and that the EU is merely playing hardball and will concede at the 11th hour to guarantee some sort of deal that allows the UK to leave the EU without disrupting trade. From this perspective, because Northern Ireland is in the UK but shares a border with the EU, the 'backstop' is closely related to 'the' as well as 'a' Customs Union, but the EU is insiting that the 'backstop' is a guarantee of frictionless trade with Ireland that also maintains the inegrity of the Good Friday Agreement, and is only designed to be used if talks on trade fail.

Although this means that Jeremy Corbyn's customs union issue will be part of the 'renewal' talks, it was always going to be, so he gets no full marks for being clever. Labour and the Conservatives have been united in their commitment to take the UK out of the EU, both parties supported the Referendum, and as a result of it, the Withdrawal Act and the invocation of Article 50. The only way in which Labour has been out of the loop is due to the fact that both Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn are obstinate people, and neither wants to be seen to forming the partnership that in fact was needed if the UK was to present a united front to the EU in negotiating the withdrawal agreement.

May as I pointed out earlier had to mollify the hard liners in her own party, making common cause with Labour would have suggested she wanted a 'soft Brexit in name only', while Corbyn for ideological reasons does not make common cause with Tories, not even sharing a public platform with them if he can avoid it. And yet, had Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn worked together on the negotiations, the triumph and the failure would have been equally shared, and the extremists marginalized.

So it is still possible to find ways of resolving the problem of the backstop, and thus possible to leave without much fuss. As for the longer term, the indicators are not good. In additional to the seasonal shutdown in auto I referred to earlier, long term investment in motor manufacturing in the UK has been hammered, the hammer blows of a changing market, and of Brexit combined, as the FT reported in the last 24 hours:

The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders warned that a no-deal Brexit would be “catastrophic” for the industry as it outlined that carmakers and their suppliers had announced new investment in the UK worth £588m last year, down 47 per cent compared with 2017. It also revealed that production was at its lowest level in five years, with 1.52m cars made in UK factories in 2018. “If this is Project Fear, then we’re doing a good impression of it being a reality,” said Mike Hawes, chief executive of the SMMT, referring to the phrase coined by Eurosceptics to dismiss predictions of negative economic consequences stemming from Brexit.
https://www.ft.com/content/b02e7342-...6-5db4543da632

Boris Johnson continues to cling to the argument that the Germans sell 750,000 cars a year to the UK and will not want to jeapordize that market, but is either ignorant of or avoids the reality that the same German auto firms sold 6 million cars in the Chinese market in one quarter of 2018-
https://www.fleeteurope.com/en/manuf...rman-carmakers

The changes taking place in the auto industry reflect a long term transition away from gas and diesel toward electric vehicles, but Brexit has fed into this with the lack of clarity on the withdrawal but also the terms of trade the UK will sign with the EU when it leaves, thus Jaguar Land Rover is shedding up to 5,000 jobs. In other areas
--Hitachi has withdrawn from investing in a nuclear power plant in North Wales, there are doubts about the Chinese and French invesment in a renewal of the Hinckley Point nuclear plant
--investment in the Swansea Tidal Lagoon was dropped last year.
--The London Stock Exchange lost 12% of its value in 2018
--Barclays Bank has been allowed by the High Court to move €190 billion of its asset to Ireland, which in addition to other examples of 'capital flight' now means something like €800 billion has left the UK since the 2016 Referendum.
https://www.ft.com/content/dbe4fd26-...6-5db4543da632

--That some of the assets of Somerset Capital Management have also been moved to Ireland is a strange endorsement of one of its managers, Jacob Rees-Mogg, MP, passionate Brexiteer who attempted and failed to remove Theresa May from the leadership of the Conservative Party and claims predictions of chaos and economic decline after Brexit is 'Projet Fear'.
--Another such fanatic, John Redwood MP advised his investors in Charles Stanley not to even invest in the UK as a result of Brexit. I think he once suggested it might take 50 years for the UK to regain its position as one of the strongest economies in the world.

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Originally Posted by peejaye

....oh; if you're looking for someone to argue with; Look elsewhere. There's already one arsehole on here doing that & he's been BLOCKED!

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Well thank God you are not that type.
Has there been anyone else in the history of this site who has posted so much on one topic without actually saying anything of substance?

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Originally Posted by broncofan

He was being sarcastic when he said it was all Corbyn's fault. You said it wasn't his fault but called Corbyn useless. Peejaye's a supporter of Corbyn so perhaps he didn't agree that he's useless. As for me, I'm just clearing up the miscommunication with no opinions whatsoever about it;)

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Corbyn has now moved to back a second referendum vote. Wonder what Peejaye thinks of that?...

https://twitter.com/classiclib3ral/s...50461697654784

A thoughtfully presented argument in favor of Brexit.

Those dastardly foreigners, working and not working at the same time. No wonder British people can't compete.

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Originally Posted by Laphroaig

Corbyn has now moved to back a second referendum vote. Wonder what Peejaye thinks of that?...

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I wouldn't be surprised if he shifts to UKIP eventually, given that seems more like his natural home.

I was pleasantly surprised by Corbyn's move, given his previous record of determined fence-sitting. He must have come under some heavy internal pressure, and may be worried about the risk of further defections.

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Originally Posted by filghy2

I wouldn't be surprised if he shifts to UKIP eventually, given that seems more like his natural home.

I was pleasantly surprised by Corbyn's move, given his previous record of determined fence-sitting. He must have come under some heavy internal pressure, and may be worried about the risk of further defections.

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UKIP have all but collapsed following the referendum result in favour of leave. Interesting that with all the chaos and Government delaying tactics over the last 2 years, and the increased support behind a second referendum, there's still no sign of a resurgence from UKIP. Wonder if that decline would be reversed if (as seems likely) there's a delay to Brexit, or (less likely) a second vote.

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Originally Posted by filghy2

I was pleasantly surprised by Corbyn's move, given his previous record of determined fence-sitting. He must have come under some heavy internal pressure, and may be worried about the risk of further defections.

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He deserves credit for it but I assume there was a risk of further defections. There have been one or two more I think (Ian Austin comes to mind) and some councilors who have resigned, so there's pressure on him. If I lived there I would want someone to try to move heaven and earth to try to fend off economic disaster.

I'm just curious what some of those here who are against Brexit would like their representatives in Parliament (or if you're foreign think Parliament should do) to do if you had your way completely?

Is there anyone who thinks that their reps should say, "we had a vote for a non binding referendum, and though the people voted in favour of it, it is only advisory. Parliament is sovereign and after investigating the issue and moving forward in good faith, we cannot implement a soft or hard brexit without doing both immediate and long-term damage to our economy."

Is there anyone who thinks, no second referendum, the first one was advisory and should have at least committed Parliament to look at their options. Now that they've done that, they can make the decision that moving forward with Brexit would harm the UK economy. I mean there are probably good reasons the public doesn't generally negotiate detail laden trade deals and shouldn't make a decision that is so contingent that they couldn't know what they're even voting on in advance of negotiations anyway.

I voted Remain and think Brexit is the most stupid decision ever made, worse than Suez. But I see no point in a second referendum which would probably produce the same result though with a different margin of victory, but that also depends on a) the polls to believe, and b) the assumption that there will be a high turnout among young people who did not have the right to vote in 2016 and would vote to remain, replacing the Leave voters who have since died.

I think, therefore, the UK should leave, but as I said in earlier posts, the best way to leave was in phases over 2 to 5 or seven years, because while voting to leave was the easy part, producing the mechanism to leave that minimises damage to trade is much harder, and requires more time than Theresa May's government has allowed. There are, even now, too many aspects of trade and law that need to be settled, but while the ERG and others cry 'Treachery' on the basis that a delay to Article 50 and the Withdawal Agreement with the EU keep is in the EU indefinitely, I think the mess merely proves my point that the Government created too narrow a time frame in which to achieve Brexit.

I expect the UK economy to go into recession for at least 10 years after Brexit, and also hope that the terms of trade that the US has offered the UK will be, either rejected outright, or amended so that the food standards issue reflects the requirement that the US meet the standards we have in the UK and the EU. I am not sure about the precise details of 'chlorinated chicken' but am aware that food standards in the US are much lower than they are in the UK because the management of food production is risky -sloppy animal welfare is the reason why so much meat and chicken is covered in faeces that need to be 'washed' in chlorine, though I can't believe this is true of all US products but don't expect organic produce to be exported anyway. I am also surprised if it is true, that food in the US is not properly labelled to tell the customer what proportion of the food contains salt, sugar, fats, and so on, while also identifyig the origin of the product.

One of the remarkable options in the terms of trade gives the US unlimited access to the UK's market, with the rider that the US may decide if the UK can trade with countries that for some reason would prejudice US trade, which has been argued means the UK won't be able to trade with China if the US says no -but why would the UK, which is leaving the EU because it says it wants to be independent and make its own free trade deals, give up its sovereign right to do so to the USA? As someone in a West Ham t-shirt might say 'Are you avin' a larf, mate?'

The US trade document is here-
https://ustr.gov/sites/default/files...Objectives.pdf